MyDigitalSSD mSATA SSD 64GB Very Bad Performance - Update: FIXED w/ FW 030

Hi all,

I just got a MyDigitalSSD mSATA SSD 64GB for my new Lenovo Thinkpad T520 and I'm finding the write performance to be very bad. I read through the other threads here regarding this SSD and I installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology and made sure that I have the latest firmware. I did a clean install of Windows on the SSD from the Lenovo recovery disks. But I still have very bad write performance, and I don't notice any "real-life" speed-up that SSDs are supposed to give compared to the HDD.

Below are my CrystalDiskMark results. As you can see, Read is OK, but Write is really bad for an SSD. This is much slower than what I see other people reporting on this same SSD ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/579322-mydigitalssd-msata-ssd-64gb-x220.html). I actually see that some people are complaining about the same issue lately ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/599675-mydigitalssd-bullet-proof-128gb-msata-review-16.html#post8271704).



Does anyone have any ideas what the problem may be? Anything else I could try to fix this?

Thanks!

 

Have you set BIOS to AHCI, and have you checked the alignment? http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/Checking_SSD_Alignment
Did you leave at least 20% of the drive unallocated? http://www.overclock.net/t/775483/d...-you-need-to-leave-unallocated-space-question

 

Yes, BIOS is set to AHCI and I checked and made sure that the SSD partition is aligned correctly. I don't have an unallocated partition on the drive, but I do have 35% of free space. But even without the unallocated partition, this SSD should not have such an abysmally bad performance as I'm seeing. There must be something else going on...

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

 

I had the same problem. Write speeds were horrific, especially the 4k writes. I wrote to MyDigital and they were happy to RMA it.

 

elbigarino, did you get a replacement of the same drive? Is that one performing better? Or did you just return it or exchange it for another SSD?

Thanks!

 

I actually just sent the bad drive out in the mail today. I'm going to give the replacement a shot and we'll see how that goes.

BTW, this is what I was getting for scores:

 

OK, thanks. Reading around in different forums, I'm finding that many people are complaining about the very low write performance of this SSD lately (for example Y560P with MyDigitalSSD 64gb mSATA SSD - Lenovo Community, http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/579322-mydigitalssd-msata-ssd-64gb-x220-7.html#post8291337, install mSATA drivers on X220 - Lenovo Community). So I would suggest everyone to stay away from this SSD until it is confirmed that it is not a widespread problem or that it can be fixed in some way.

If no one has any other ideas on this, I guess I may have to RMA this drive as well...

 

I originally thought that it was misaligned (it was, btw). I used Gparted to get it all proper-like and the write speeds were still garbage. The address that I sent it to is literally 40 minutes from my house so I should receive my replacement soon. I'll update when I re-install.

 

Yea, mine has been bad as well. I know they recently switched over to 28nm I think? That may be the issue. I dunno. Mine isn't as bad as yours in benchmarks, but it is horrible in real performance. Any kind of writing brings the system to a halt. I have to wait for the writing to be finished before I can move on. And it is not any snappier than my 5400rpm HDD. Really regretting this purchase. I contacted them and hopefully will get a replacement or refund.

 

Well, I contacted MyDigitalDiscount and they told me to contact their "Technical specialist". I wrote him about this problem and that several other people have this issue with their 64GB mSATA SSD. I'm waiting for an answer.

Those of you who got a replacement, please share if your replacement doesn't have this issue any more.

Thanks!

 

@ALL, I had exactly the same stuttering writes while putting together the http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...-8-microsata-ssd-user-review.html#post8303963. The solution was to flash new S5FAM014 or S5FAM015 firmware. During my discussion I managed to get a hold of these new firmware versions for the mSATA product as well which I've uploaded for you guys to test below.

Updating the MyDigitalSSD mSATA firmware to AM014/AM015

NOTE

1. You will lose all your data on your mSATA SSD during the firmware update process. I booted a Ubuntu CD with a USBHDD attached, copied the MBR/partition info with 'dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/USBHDD/mbr.img bs=64k count=200' and then used 'ntfsclone /dev/sda1 -O /media/sda1.img' for each of my partitions to save small image data files. Then just reversed the process after the firmware update to get the data back pretty quickly (ensure you unplug/replug the USBHDD for it to register the new MBR/partition info before using ntfsclone to write the image back to the HDD).

2. Running the firmware updater in Win7 would result in a AP-key NOT enable by Device ! error. I refined abdn-android's solution here to this problem into a much faster and easier method of getting a Win7 PE environment to do the firmware update below.

3. This only worked on the 2530P if I switched the sata port into AHCI mode. IDE mode would still give the AP-key error. This may be different on other systems like a Lenovo X220.

The S5FAM015 firmware was provided with the wording

I've been using the 1.8"-specific S5FAM015 with great results on my 1.8" MDS Bullet Proof so the mSATA version may give equally as good results for those SSD.

I hope this info can be used to quickly resolve the mSATA write lags issue for you as it did for me. Good luck!

 

Hi,

I've tried both 14 and 15 firmwares and my write times are still horrible, also i experience heavy stutteting in the games. Write times are ok right after flashing new firmware when SSD is empty (0/60Gb), but when i restore it from backup to OS+games partition (34/60Gb) write speed drops down to 1Mbps. Hopefully we will get response from representative, since i am going to send my ssd back.

Thanks to nando4 for the instruction though.

 

Totally random as I'd never even heard of your SSD before, but for kicks, check to see if you have the symptoms I described at http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...age/613245-samsung-830-ssd-6.html#post8295774.

If you're hitting those symptoms, it might be worthwhile to try the workaround I mentioned there. I'd advise you to not muck w/registry unless you're hitting those exact symptoms (iastor timeouts at the same time the HDD light on solid while the system pauses).

 

Thanks, but it doesn't really address the HDD-ish write speeds for random 4k, i tend to think that new generation of 64Gb SSD from MyDigitalSSD are faulty, however i just got a mail from memoryC where they are reassuring me that this issue is not common and is an exception. Really hope so, otherwise i'll have to go for Intel or other mSata SSD.

 

I am anticipating one of you guys getting your replacement to see if this is an issue with the individual SSD or the computer and its setting and the SSD together. We have been selling these for nearly a year now and within the past 3 weeks I have received around 4 reports like this and during the previous year I may have received one or two report of problems with a 64GB mSATA.

 

Today the new 64gb drive arrived (props to MyDigital for the quick turnaround). Just installed and ran CDM. The sequential write is still a bit slow, but compared to what I was getting before the new drive is a vast improvement.

Compared to:
View attachment 75554

 

Wow that is great news so it was just a small incident with a batch. One person said in one thread here that our defect rate is abnormally low and claimed it to be impossible. Well I guess he was right in a way but I will take 4 defects out of 2-3K pcs all day long.

MyDigitalSSD

 

I just received my second one of these SSD's and the results aren't much better:



I'm really not sure what to do at this point.

 

elbigarino, could you please post your results of the replacement drive after having installed the OS/Programs on it? I see that the new results you posted are of a completely empty drive, and the previous one you posted was of the drive being 63% full. I just want to make sure you are not seeing what BadRed is seeing, that the drive performs as expected when it is empty, but when the drive is not empty, the write performance drops to HDD speeds. This may be why mase123987 is seeing lower speeds...

So can you please post your results with the OS installed on the SSD?

Thanks!

 

I just got mine last night and have very similar low results. I haven't checked the alignment yet though so will post my speeds later. My boot time is around 30 secs which is only about 10 secs shorter than stock, so I am highly disappointed and will return this if I don't get better results tonight. Also am only seeing about 44gb of usable space. Is that correct?

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

No that is not correct you should be getting around 60GB of free space after formatting sounds like you are down a channel from a defective flash chip and that is why you are getting about 3/4th speeds out of this one and why it is only showing 44GB. I am getting another one out overnight to you today.

Well at least this is not the same problem as before but what strange luck.

FYI, this is our 1st defective Toshiba flash chip since we started selling these last March. Not talking just with 64GB I mean all Toshiba flash based SSD we have sold since March of last year.

MyDigitalSSD

Well the random speeds are around 10 times faster than a HDD. Has performance of your PC felt better? Usually you can tell the diff from the 1st click of an application.

 

Will let me check it again tonight, I didnt get a good look at it yesterday but am feeling alot better with the strong support on here. I installed my os onto the msata with no hdd attached yesterday using the Lenovo recovery discs I made, is it possible It created a hidden partition on the msata drive?

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

It's possible there is an additional recovery partition created. The easiest way to identify what's been created is to:

- Hit WIN+R, then type 'diskmgmt.msc'

You'll see Disk 0 reported along with it's size which should say 60GB. If it's 44GB then there is something wrong with the SSD such as one of the four channels missing as highlighted by MyDigitalSSD above.

 

It does feel a little bit faster. The first SSD was showing stuttering and slow downs after a few days of use. This second one I haven't used enough to know if that would happen again.

BTW...Thanks for being active here and through emails with trying to solve all issues.

 

Sure thing. I'm working on trying to clean install XP Pro for work stuff. Of course, XP won't recognize the drive so I have to slipstream the ACHI drivers and whatnot. I'll post as soon as I'm done.

 

When dealing with OS's that don't support Trim or Garbage collection you are going to notice a slow down of your SSD over time. Just a heads up. I would suggest using Win 7.

 

I'm getting terrible performance too and pretty bad stuttering issues.
Coming from an Intel X25M G2, it's noticeably slower. I don't know if it's the stuttering, but it seems to make my W520 (i7 2720qm, 8gb) unbearably slow.
Boot up with MDSSD to usable desktop~50 seconds
Boot up with Intel to usable desktop ~25 seconds
Both are from a clean install.

day 1


day 2


alignment seems ok

 

Just noticed your AS-SSD result doesn't list the firmware. Unusual since my 1.8" Bulletproof shows it. Have you tried the AM014/AM015 firmware I posted above? From what I can tell the stuttering occurs too when the drive is filled past half of it's capacity. No such problems with the 128GB 1.8" version.

 

Oh yeah I forgot to mention FW, when I checked on PC Wizard it reported AM015.
I'm a bit past 50% capacity now, but even when it was fresh and I just installed Windows 7 and drivers, it was less than 50% capacity and incredibly laggy.

 

Okay so I fixed my size issue, sure enough lenovo recovery disk created a restore partition that was taking up 13gb of space. I checked and it is correctly aligned. Here are my results.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 134.106 MB/s
Sequential Write : 82.996 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 106.075 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 37.328 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 9.004 MB/s [ 2198.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 14.212 MB/s [ 3469.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 51.445 MB/s [ 12559.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 16.438 MB/s [ 4013.1 IOPS]

Test : 500 MB [C: 51.1% (30.3/59.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/18 20:34:58
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

With all 0s for test data speeds look more like I was expecting.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 252.669 MB/s
Sequential Write : 227.786 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 228.901 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 218.996 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 33.329 MB/s [ 8136.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 32.517 MB/s [ 7938.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 42.551 MB/s [ 10388.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 56.186 MB/s [ 13717.4 IOPS]

Test : 500 MB [C: 51.5% (30.6/59.4 GB)] (x5) <All 0x00, 0Fill>
Date : 2012/02/18 20:44:59
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

I will do some further testing with loading adobe Photoshop and other apps.

 

I am receiving another tom. directly from MyDigitalSSD. I will hopefully get one that works perfectly, because $80 for this is def. the best deal to be had. I will post my results tom. when I get it. Besides the last week or 2, it seems like most other reviews are all good so I have high hopes.

 

Well that is great news and Nando you rock. What a great base of knowledge this forum offers. Guess we wasted some money on Saturday delivery for you. But it was in the name of good support.

MyDigitalSSD

Can you tell if the drive has the S5 or S7 controller on it? It would say it right on the controller in the part # mixed with some other #'s. I still don't have my hands on one of these. Have one coming in to me very soon though.

 

So I just received my third 64gb SSD from MyDigitalSSD. I ran CyrstalDM 64-bit numerous different times to see what if this drive was any better than the rest and to see what I was doing that could help and hurt the speeds. Sorry if this is a long post but hopefully it might be worthy of posting.

The first test was done literally right after I installed Windows 7 64-bit Professional Edition. No drivers had been installed yet:

The second test involved installing the Intel Drivers along with the ethernet and wireless drivers so I could access the internet:

The third test was done after all other drivers were installed:

As you can tell, there is a drop in performance after this last step. Here are the drivers I installed. I'm not sure what any of these would cause it:

Since there is an obvious drop in some catagories, I then reinstalled the Intel drivers that helped the first time in case I had installed a different driver that somehow had affected it. Here are the results after:

The fifth test was ran after I updated Windows 7 until there wasn't any updates left:

I decided to fill most of the drive by adding movie files to see how the drive would perform:

Also, I changed the power settings on my laptop to "Performance to see if that had any affect:

Here is the performance of my platter drive with windows 7 on it:


Also, the platter and SSD have the same Windows experience. When I have filled up my platter before, I generally didn't notice much slow down. With the SSD, things like opening up My Computer are slow to work.

 

It is S5 controller

 

Has anyone ran Windows 8 on this drive and had better results than Windows 7?

 

Just wanted to chime in here, I sent a report to the 'contact us' form today. I am experiencing the same stuttering and random delays as others here. I have the MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm Bulletproof mSATA (Mini SATA PCI-e) SSD - MDMS-50128. I have Intel RST drivers installed.

From what I can tell, there is no resolution yet?

Thanks

 

Okay, I'm calling it quits with this SSD.
Performance has been poor since day 1. It's been about a week now and it just continues to get worse. The overall user experience is terrible, it makes my W520 with i7 2720qm and 8gb ddr3 come to a creeping crawl. Stuttering and non-responsive applications... 28 seconds to open PC Wizard, 18 seconds to open CPU-Z, 15 seconds to open FireFox, 5 seconds to simply open a Windows Explorer box.

I'm going back to my trusty Intel X25m 160gb until I find a deal on a Samsung or Intel mSATA.

LOL...
Cold boot and opening Microsoft Word ~9 minutes

 

I totally understand and I am working to find out why this is happening to some users. It is probably going to take a little time.

MyDigitalSSD

 

Can these not be returned for a refund? I already purchased another mSATA SSD.
I'd rather not deal with another faulty SSD (which seems likely with the new 64GB judging by the recent posts) and waste my time troubleshooting or waiting for a firmware. Thanks.

 

Mines been working fine. A little slower specs than I expected but noticeably much faster.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

Which one do you have? One of the newer 50mm versions?

 

I have same problems, and i want to know what can i do to have a new one or a refund...(i bought it from memoryc coz i am from europe...)

 

I too am experiencing stutter and very slow performance with the drive on a Y570 (standalone drive not rapid drive). I have tried a few fresh installs with formats in between and performance degrades within hours. Write speeds are abysmal at present. I have sent crystal disk mark results to Mydigital to see if they can find the problem. This is with the AM014 firmware.

Edit - I have checked that I am in AHCI mode, drive is properly aligned (size divisible by 4096), link power state is disabled, and intel rapid tech is installed (iaStor driver).

 

Of course at any time any of you having this issue can send them back. Keep in mind MyDigitalDiscount and our other resellers also have many other mSATA options to chose from.

I am very confident that Phison will be able to figure this out and give us some good info soon. I am thinking another week at the absolute most.

MyDigitalSSD

 

I hate to add another one, but I report the same problem: slow 4k write speeds. That was on 012 firmware though, just upgraded to 015 and reinstalling as we speak.

Edit: I forgot to mention, this was a 64gb mSATA I bought in November of 2011. Working with a quad core Lenovo Y470, also, it seems to be producing quite a bit of heat, I don't know if that's normal.

 

Ok got some info back but looks like it is not a silver bullet yet.

Phison suggested trying a Disk Defragment. This will improve the usability of the drive.

They are also developing a a new TRIM AP and the upcoming 016 FW will have improved TRIM. They feel this will solve the issues that some of you guys are experiencing.

 

They're suggesting going against ALL of the literature on fragmentation and solid state drives? Doesn't sound very conducive to the life of the drive, which would cause more RMA's for YOU guys. Sounds like one of the techs at Phison just doesn't want you bothering him/her anymore...

Update on the reinstall: 4k writes went from about 0.3 to about 8.2, so that's good! Sequential reads & writes both dropped by about 20 MB/s [150 to about 130], but I can't notice a difference.

I'll anticipate 016! I hope that this time I won't have reinstall everything again, but hey, it's a learning experience. Thank you for your work.

 

They also just got off a vacation. They did address the problem and are working on it but things take some time to perfect that is for sure. Doing a few defrag's is not going to hurt the SSD. I would suggest trying it as well and see how it feels after that.

Glad you got your drive up to speed.

MyDigitalSSD

 

I installed the new firmware to my drive and got a significant increase in its performance. It definately feels faster and the numbers are a little higher. Heres my new Crystaldiskmark results:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 138.609 MB/s
Sequential Write : 97.760 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 107.653 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 74.687 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 7.943 MB/s [ 1939.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 21.791 MB/s [ 5320.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 52.261 MB/s [ 12758.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 21.175 MB/s [ 5169.8 IOPS]

Test : 500 MB [C: 60.5% (36.1/59.6 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/29 22:03:59
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

My windows index score also jumped up to 6.9 from 5.9 with previous firmware. The new Firmware really has made a big improvement and hope they keep the improvements coming.

 

I'm just about to purchase one for my X220, and I'm hoping that these issues will be resolved soon after its arrival! Is anybody getting similar results close to those found on TheSSDReview?